


Sleep Tight

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Torture, not overly graphic but I want you to stay safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 02:51:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3920164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has nightmares. The Avengers are no different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep Tight

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is sad. You have been warned.  
> (Violence tw for Tony, Clint, Nat, and Bruce's sections, unreality tw for the dreams)

Everyone gets nightmares. The Avengers are no different.

\--

Steve's dreams jump between past and present.

He is cold, so cold. Cold in trenches, in pouring rain, in ice, in New York. Flashes of faces he knows and lost rush by, so fast he almost wouldn't be able to recognize them, had he not known them so intimately.

Gun shots, explosions, Bucky falling, falling, falling in the plane, into the ocean, the freezing cold water, freezing over into the blue ice, blue like the tesseract, blue like the bursts of energy from HYDRA weapons, red white and blue, the Red Skull, the red of Peggy's lipstick, asking him to dance.

He is dancing with her as the world crumbles around them. Soft jazz plays, the beat kept by a twenty-one gun salute.

Bucky laughing, caring for him, sponging sweat off his feverish forehead and blood off a gunshot that'll heal over in the next hour anyway. 

Bucky, no, the Winter Soldier, shooting him, trying to kill him, eyes dead and metal arm freezing as it wraps it's fingers around his throat.

He is so, so cold.

The dream fades as he shivers and wraps a blanket or four tighter around himself.

\--

_Can't breath can't breathe can't breathe_

Tony dreams of a freezing cave in the middle of a burning desert.

_Stop please please stop_

Confinement. Being held under dirty, stagnant water until his whole body has single-minded focus on _I need air_. Waterboarding, liquid rushing up his nose and down his throat, making him gag and vomit and heave. A blowtorch, burning his arms as blisters raise and burst. Pain digging into his chest, a constant reminder of the shrapnel trying to bury itself in his heart.

_I'll do it I'll do it just please stop_

The faces of the soldiers, of the people his weapons have killed, of Yinsen, all dead because of him.

The faces of all those who could die, just by being around him.

Pepper. Rhodey. Steve. Bruce. Clint, Natasha, Thor, so many others he doesn't want to think about. 

A wormhole in the sky. The freezing expanse of space.

No air.

_Can't breathe_

He wakes up gasping, tears down his face, reaching desperately for Pepper. She holds him and whispers calming words as he shakes in her arms.

\--

Lately, Clint's dreams are washed in blue.

_Do you know what it's like to be unmade?_

He does. Intimately. 

The sharp release of an arrow as it flies into an agent's throat, someone he probably talked to and joked with and maybe even went on missions with.

Giving precise orders on how exactly to destroy the organization that had been his home for so long.

The fight with the person he loves more than anyone.

He watched the video of Natasha talking to Loki, and god, he wishes he hadn't because now that's all his dreams are filled with. 

A single misstep, one wrong move, and he could have done exactly what Loki threatened.

She hates being trapped, being powerless, so he breaks her arms and watches her struggle to push herself up on the useless limbs.

He doesn't hurry. Drags a knife along her back, raising a red line, pushing deeper a he goes. Kicks her in the ribs and stomach a few times to keep her still, then steps sharply on each hand. She gasps as they break, but doesn't yet cry out.

Knife in each kneecap. Flip her over so the cuts on her back scrape against the grimy floor. Do the same to her stomach. 

Eventually, the blood loss reaches the point of no return. She's still alive, but delirious. She can't come back from this.

That's when he gets control again. The blue haze fades from his eyes as he looks at what he's done. He breaks down immediately, sobbing, screaming, wishing death on Loki and himself and everyone. 

She tries to grab his hand with what little strength she has left, but the broken bones do not allow it. Instead, she calls him closer with what's left of her voice, and whispers that she loves him.

Somehow, that hurts more than any rejection ever could. 

His own cries wake him. Natasha is whispering in his ear, calling him back. He pushes her away and scrambles to the other side of the bed, frightened of himself.

She isn't hurt or offended. She gets it. Instead, she starts gently singing in Russian. Eventually, he calms and crawls back over and lays his head in her lap. She strokes his hair, still singing.

\-- 

Natasha has enough nightmares to rival Clint's.

They're never the same. Sometimes it's the Red Room. Others, it's a mission she did as part of the KGB, thinking of the innocent lives she took. Still others, it's one of her more current missions, one that was cut close, or one she barely made it out of.

They're always different, and always horrifying. 

This one is about an old rescue mission. One she went on a few years ago. Clint had been taken for information. She had found him before it went too far. He had been black and blue and cut to ribbons, but he was awake and alive and sassing off his captors. She had easily cut them down with carefully controlled anger, and Clint had asked her what took her so long, and also to marry him. 

Tonight, it goes a little differently. Rather than being tied to a chair, he is hung by his wrists. He has bruises and cuts and burns and is absolutely covered in blood. 

She's too late. 

She's too late, and her best friend, the one who took her in and helped her out of her awful past, is dead.

The rage she feels is unparalleled. Buried under that are feelings she refuses to face. Guilt, grief, pain so deep and irrevocable she feels that not even wiping out this entire facility will soothe her.

She strokes his bloody face and whispers that she'll be right back.

No one in the building is left alive.

The dream shifts, scattered. 

Ballet. The feel of a gun in small, soft hands. The crunch of a bone as it snaps. Cold words of someone training her. Sharp scalpels wrapped in the haze of drugs. A hard wood floor beneath her as she is knocked to the ground. Hands wrapped around her throat, her desperately pulling at them.

She wakes silently, tears streaking down her face. There is no one awake to comfort her.

\--

Thor's dreams would seem happy to an outsider.

Loud parties full of joyful people, fast, breathless hunts, the thrill of the beginning battle.

Loki is always there.

He's laughing and enjoying himself along with everyone else, entertaining all those around him with his dry humor and tricks. He knows how to work a crowd, and it's obvious.

Thor can never tell if these dreams are memories or conjurations of his own mind, desperate for glad times with his brother. 

But before he can ever wake, Loki changes. Suddenly, he becomes withdrawn and cold, with blue tinted skin and purple-black bruises under his eyes. He lashes out, shredding everything he comes into contact with.

Loki want the Realms in his palm. Thor just wants his brother.

He sees the wreckage of New York, watches the desperate ambition in Loki's eyes collapse right along with it. This is no kingdom. 

Thor asks his brother to come home. Loki tosses himself off the building and flies off on the back of one of the members of his detestable army.

He and his brother are young again, roughhousing in the training area. Their father and mother watch, Odin pointing out openings in Thor's defense, Frigga critiquing Loki's magic. 

Loki goes for a killing blow.

Thor wakes.

He angrily wipes away a tear that escaped into his face, and sits up in his bed. The time reads 2 AM. 7 AM in London.

He calls Jane.

\--

Bruce dreams in shades of green. 

The green of the other guy, the green of military uniforms, the green, green, green of his fierce envy for his _normal_ colleagues, with no worries about what could happen to them if they get too scared or angry or hurt, with families to go home to and friends who aren't scared of them, even a little.

He dreams of losing control.

The Tower, crumbling under the weight of His rage and the force of His fear. He sees the world in green, sees his only friends running desperately from him. A hammer strikes His side. The offending arm is snapped and the body connected to it thrown out the window. 

Three arrows bury themselves in His shoulder. He finds the source and rips it apart.

Bullets ricochet off His back. He backhands the woman holding the gun so hard she makes a dent in the wall she's thrown into.

Someone jumps onto His back, yelling to Him about someone named Bruce. He tears the man off and pounds him into the floor, five, ten, twenty times, until the blue of his outfit turns to red.

Finally, there is one person left, encased in gold and red and flying. Somehow, He thinks He knows this one. He reaches out, but the person in the armor just takes a deep shuddering breath, then raises his hand and fires. 

Bruce wakes right when the blast hits. 

He quietly has a panic attack, then goes through his breathing exercises.

He needs to get out of here.

\--

It's not unusual to see all the Avengers sitting in the media room of Stark Tower at three in the morning, where stiff theater chairs have been ripped up and replaced with beanbags, huge pillows, and one giant overstuffed couch. Bruce argues _Jurassic Park_ over Tony's _Star Trek_. Clint tosses in a request for _Brave._ He sits as close to Natasha as possible on the couch, with Bruce on his other side. Tony leans against Bruce's legs when he's not turning around to argue. Thor has made a huge pile of pillows in the center of the room and contentedly buries himself in the middle. Steve sits in the center of the room, leaning against the couch, as relaxed as the rest of the team ever sees him. If anyone has tear tracks drying on their face, or raw throats from screaming their way out of sleep, no one mentions it. They understand.

The opening music of _Mulan_ starts up, with Tony looking grouchy and Natasha looking smug. Thor sits up straight like he just had an idea, then hops up out of his cushion pile. He returns a few minutes late carrying a tray loaded with mugs of hot chocolate and bowls of popcorn.

Everyone curls up closer to each other. Tony loudly sings along to songs, trying to get Steve to harmonize with him. Thor gladly does in his stead. Natasha throws popcorn at Tony, but misses and hits Bruce. Clint joins in, throwing a kernel into Tony's hot chocolate. Everyone is laughing and singing and cracking jokes. At one point, people start throwing popcorn into the air to see if Clint can knock it down with another piece. He never misses, not even when Natasha starts tickling him. Steve eventually joins in the singing during "A Girl Worth Fighting For", and surprises everyone with how well he can carry the tune. Thor manages not to break any mugs, and happily goes back and forth to the kitchen to get refills.

Steve is piled under blankets. Clint and Natasha are constantly touching each other, is if reminding themselves that the other one is alive. Tony occasionally gasps for air, like he forgot how to breathe for a second. Bruce sometimes closes his eyes and does a few breathing exercises. Thor just looks happy to be surrounded by the people he loves.

They're all covering how shaky they are, how exhausted from lack of sleep. Despite that, not one of them would rather be somewhere else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
